


Beneath the Quaking Tree

by Totally_Not_An_Awkward_Okapi



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: AU, Gen, I mean major as in POV not major as in important, Look I am adding as I go and don’t entirely know where we are going, Mantis is pretty beat up and we’ve got a bit of implied medical malpractice?, Swearing, so pretty much the normal for Mantis but y’know, well Shabani is important to me at least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:02:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28889550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Totally_Not_An_Awkward_Okapi/pseuds/Totally_Not_An_Awkward_Okapi
Summary: A split second decision ends with the Diamond Dogs gaining a tiny psychic and everything getting thrown out of wack. So that’s nice.
Relationships: Liquid Snake/Psycho Mantis
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

The gunshot woke him up. The strength of his fear was enough to let him move a bit. Even this tiny amount of movement sent his mind reeling with possibilities of it. But Shabani’s short bit of fearful freedom was quickly stopped. Something heavy was preventing him from going any further against his restrains. It pushed against the cold, fragile skin of his chest, his lungs burning. What was it? It felt metallic as it held down his chest. But it couldn’t be. It felt too much like a hand. But it was too rough, too mechanical. It moved like one too. Whoever-whatever this was, he wouldn’t let them win. He wouldn’t-

The distinctive click of a gun. The gun that woke him up? Was it pointed at him? He couldn’t see very well. He stopped moving. He didn’t dare move his head to look. He would stay still. Let it shoot the thing holding him down. Someone shouted something in English. He was too tired to translate it. It didn’t matter. Heat blew through from behind him, through whatever wall had been there previously. A fire seemed to run past him, and he waisted himself trying to pull away. It didn’t roar like a fire. It roared like nothing he had ever heard. But then something else pulled at him.

Pulled wasn’t the right word. It was like putting on his father’s glasses. Everything was off and sharp and-

There was another voice in his mind. It sounded so much like his but was so definitely not his own voice. It sounded nothing like him. It spoke no language he knew. The words had no emotion nor meaning but still (somehow) stained his mind with emotions that were not his. The mind was curious, and sad. He felt curious and sad. It made him feel sad. He would not be sad. Sadness was stopping, stopping was death, and just thinking about that made him angry. He would not be sad and he would not feel pity, no matter what this mind forced into him. The mind responded with- minds? The emotions felt like two minds. They where both excited and scared by his anger. Good. It should be scared of him.

He forced his eyes to work. They were hot and his vision was blurry, but he would see it. He could just barely see it. Red haloed a black muzzle and orange eyes. Was this what was in his mind? It had to be. What else would be in his mind anyway, other than some strange beast. Had this beast decided it would kill him before the fire could? It wasn’t a smart hunter, but it certainly had some balls. He hoped he was a poor meal. He hoped the thing got sick and- 

He was looking down at himself. He was- well, he already knew he looked really, really bad. But seeing his face- his neck. It was upsetting. Why was he looking at himself? Was the beast doing this? The mind gave no coherent response to any of his questions. He couldn’t even be bothered to figure out what it was trying to say. Probably wasn’t even speaking a human language. Maybe it was just mimicking it’s last victim. A beast as monstrous as this would certainly try that. He wished he could speak so he could dare it to continue.

He felt himself fill with a wave of calm. Not just calm, he felt content. Happy. He was none of these things, but he felt them all the same. Was this how the beast in his mind hunted? Why would it bother, he was already at its mercy. Or maybe this was just it’s idea of mercy? It didn’t matter. He would not die. He fought to sit up and lashed his arms as he went. He brushed against the beast leathery hide, which gave easily. So it was starved? That would explain it being so desperate that it would attack him here, risk him passing on his sickness.

It was still trying to keep him down. It was still speaking it’s nonsensical words, though it was slowing down. Had it finally figured out he couldn’t understand it? It kept on pushing those false emotions on him in waves. But now something had changed. It was trying something new.

It was trying to implore his own mind. His memories.

He was “adventuring” with his brother. They were safe and happy.  
He was bouncing down a cold street. There was joy in the air and he was happy.  
He was with all his family for a meal. All were content and happy.  
He was resting on soft moss far out in the woods. He was tired yet, happy.  
He was with his boys. He was safe. He was content. He was tried.  
And he was happy.

He almost let himself settle back down. But- but these weren’t his memories! Some were, but these weren’t his. He had only ever heard of snow and had never seen it, let alone caught it on his tongue. Yet that memory crisply filled him. He could barely remember a time that felt cold like these memories. But these could not be memories of a beast, could they? Were these the beast former victims? Where did it come from, where it’s victims dreamed of snow?

He could barely think. The beast was filling him so fully with all this false warmth and sugar. There was a pain in his chest. Perhaps that was it’s game. Sweetening him up? Another push of false things. Another sharp twist. He wouldn’t let it. He would not die. And if he did (which he wouldn’t) he would take at least one of these bastards down with him.

And it was at this point that something unexpected happened.

He was partially right. 

The beast in his mind weakened. It stopped lying. It was filling with sleep itself, a different sort of artificial sleep. It’s thoughts slowed down to a curious dribble. It briefly seemed to blip out of his blurred vision, but it returned within the second. They could not escape. It was too tired. He felt himself filling with the sleep, how it tasted of medicine. But right when it reached its peak, it cut off. Something dropped onto his chest. The beast? No, the weight was light and sorta human shaped. The twisting in his chest grew larger, and felt himself losing himself again. But he knew he had succeeded. He had taken down someone else with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fun(?) fact: Initially, Shabani was going to be the POV for most of the fic and survive the Devil’s house, but that turn out to be way more depressing than killing him off here. Sorry my dude, you will be missed. I do think we really don’t appreciate that Shabani was apparently angry enough to beat Skull Face, Big Boss, and Volgin in a fight for control. Now that I look back you could absolutely end your reading here (and honestly you should this isn’t very good) if you want to think their both dead to get that sweet, sweet ‘The Little Match Girl” ending but I hate that story so it’s going to continue.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What exactly happened in the last chapter reveals itself! And I break my own rule on not using important characters as POVs.

V pondered what he would say had happened. If this were a public affair, they would say it had been a moment of quick thinking on his part. But it wasn’t. He should probably have said that anyways since it would be good for morale, but he didn’t like the idea of lying about this. About shooting a kid. It had barely been instinct. He had just done it. Perhaps that was why the boy hadn’t been able to teleport, become intangible, or even just dodge. There were no thoughts to hear about it. He had pulled a gun and shot it. He was lucky that the shot had been a tranquilizer. He was lucky two of the three shots had landed, hitting the boys feet in quick succession. They were so pale that they made easy targets.

As he moved towards the boys, he stared at Volgin frozen in front of him. If not for the word implying some beauty or handsomeness, he would call him statuesque. His ears buzzed, someone was talking to him. Well, at him. He ignored it for now. He reached the bed, and found himself staring at the tiny dart which lay next to it. A small dent in the metal making it clear how close it had been. 

First things first, he had to handle his mission and the floating boy. He slung the boy over one shoulder and, finding that he weighed barely anything, had much less concern about how he would carry both of them out. He reached down, then stepped away sharply. Shabani was dead. His attention turned to the boy on his shoulder, slow to the realization that they were likely the reason he now lay dead. Careful to not disturb what was now a grave, he took the boy’s necklace.

He stared across the devil’s house. What more could he do? There wasn’t time to give everyone here mercy and the medical team couldn’t even begin to cure them now. It wasn’t like they had any potential cures anyway. He fidgeted, readjusting the small weight of the child on his shoulder. He had to accept this, at least for now. He had to get out of here. Survive another day.

He found the small lion figure had a nice weight in his hand as he exited through the “door” the Man on Fire had opened, careful of the rubble. It was so much brighter outside, it felt almost like stepping out of a theater. Almost. But is was nice enough out that Pequod found him particularly easily. Which meant he was left with nothing to do but overthink everything.

He wasn’t sure how much the kid had been hit with, but though the kids heart beat was slow, it was consistently slow. Which was worrying in it’s own way. He had no clue how much the kid’s powers affected his body, so for all he knew this was the kid’s resting heart rate. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing the kid’s powers did. But it meant he had no clue how long it would keep the kid down. Given the kid’s track record with helicopters, he really wasn’t looking forward to the kid waking up.

He tried to refocus. Think about something else. Anything else. But the psychic kid was sorta hard to ignore. Even when sleeping the kid bobbed slightly, completely ignoring how the helicopter moved. He could have swore he saw the kid move through the wall behind him when he would have bumped into it. The line buzzed back to life. Apparently his resident shoulder angel and devil had finally worked out what they had to say about this.

“You're really making a habit of capturing enemies with supernatural powers, eh Boss?” So Ocelot was leading this integration. That made sense honestly. “You really outdid yourself if you were trying to piss off Miller with this one. A kid AND a powerful Cipher agent? In one mute package!” This was apparently enough for him to finally come back on, apparently just to argue with Ocelot. V gave up on listening to their bickering. Whatever they had to say, he’d completed the mission to the best of his ability and managed to capture someone who was seemingly very important to whatever Skull Face was planning. He really didn’t need to listen to this. What more was there to say anyway? None of them were going to kill a sleeping kid. Actually, if counted as one of “them” the psychic might.

He tried to refocus from that morbid train of thought, but at this point he had fully lost the conversation. He could try and sort it out, but he didn’t particularly want to. He considered what else he could do and found himself moving across the small space and towards the kid. He crouched down. It turned out the exact thing that would make him deal with the psychic Russian was the Russian cowboy. This factoid would have to be kept from the others, because they would absolutely abuse this power. The kid seemingly ignoring the movements of the ‘copter made more sense when he was close enough to see the boy was only perpendicular to the seats, floating just a bit above it. Which made his work easier.

Careful to make as little actual contact with the kid he could, he started to undo the first of the straps keeping on the straight jacket. He doubted the folks on the medical platform particularly wanted to deal with it, so it was better to get it over with now. The kid gave no reaction to the first or second buckle going loose, so it seemed a safe enough move.

If the outside of the jacket smelled of death and fire, the inside somehow managed to smell worse. He didn’t bother to try and pull the jacket off, because he wasn’t quite that foolhardy, but he still got a fine look at how the kid's emaciated body was painfully painted with burns. Soiled bandages desperately tried to cover what he could only assume was the worst of it, and he tried very hard to convince himself that the bandages were just stained with old iodopovidone. He didn’t really succeed. With the level of casual dirt that made a clear line between the space the jacket did and did not cover, even he struggled to picture how much worse it would be under the bandages.

He fiddled with Shabani’s necklace as he thought for a moment.

A thought crossed his mind, a rare occurrence indeed. V picked himself up and looked around for one of the diamond dog jackets they stored in the helicopters. The pair in his ears were onto the topic of what was to be done now, which was of little more interest than their opinions on what to do with the floating kid. He finally found one of the smaller diamond dog jackets. Turns out, he apparently was foolhardy enough to try and replace the kid’s jacket. Though he was careful to make the switch quick and not risk waking the kid, he made sure to note the pair of barcodes that marked the skin of the kid’s shoulders. The jacket was still far too big, but it didn’t unnerve him like the straight jacket did. The murderous psychic was almost cute in the mercenary jacket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably my second least favorite chapter? I’m going to try to keep releasing chapters on Tuesdays but I’ll absolutely end up missing a date at some point.


	3. Chapter 3

On arrival, Silent Crocodile had been anxious about what she might face trying to fix on Mother Base. She knew she was lucky that the Diamond Dogs had found out about her and Dr- Crying Harrier before the missing pieces were all taken care off. And sure, it wasn’t Skull Face, and she was actually helping people, so it couldn’t be too bad but she was still… apprehensive. Luckily, it was mostly undeserved. Sure, she hadn’t expected to deal with so many animal based injuries or so many children, but those weren’t anything new. Infighting came up sometimes, but again, she was used to that.

But then there was the kid.

She turned to face them. The hospital bed made the small, thin boy look even less threatening. She knew that anyone who floated around in that mask and a straight jacket could become well intimidating, but the tiny string bean on that bed certainly seemed a more difficult case. She still remembered what she heard about him though. What he could do. It didn’t relieve her stress to be able to get close and learn how much those powers bent even him. Despite looking like he had never eaten, the kid needed a surprising amount of nutrients. The other doctors were lucky they realized that before they starved the poor kid. Then it was figuring out blood work to get the kid the nutrition without touching the mask. No one wanted to touch that thing. If just by waking up Big Boss could overpower the kid with it on, they didn’t want to learn what he would be like without it. She tried to refocus. The kid’s mask was a Pandora’s box.

Besides, he had plenty of other issues. The severe muscle atrophy, for instance. She couldn’t even hazard a guess when he last walked. Hazarding it despite that, it was probably before the burns had happened. After all, there had clearly been little to no attempt at physical therapy to keep the kid’s skin from getting too tight where the burns covered joints. Of course, the burns were the main point of concern, obvious and horrible as they were. The boy looked like a model for all the different types of burns she might have seen in a particularly graphic textbook. She was almost certain the burns also covered the kid’s face. She could see where the burns escaped from under the mask, the crumpled pink ear, the burnt up neck, and how the hair didn’t quite grow right on one side. But she wasn’t planning on touching the kids mask anytime soon, so that would have to wait.

She sat down. A drizzle had worked its way to a proper storm outside. There wasn’t anyone to play a concerned family member who would stay with him, so here she was. It felt like someone sleeping in a hospital bed should have someone concerned about them by their side. It was part of the picture. The mask broke the scene a bit, sure, but she still wanted to fix it. That was why she’d gone into this line of work after all, to fix things. Make things better. She didn’t know when she drifted off. It was so easy to slip off around the sleeping psychic.

One of the other doctors approaching wasn’t what woke her up. It wasn’t the shocked gasp. Nor even the signature click of the other doctor’s dress shoes against the linoleum turned rapid and fearful. No, it was the abrupt sound of someone else’s thoughts in her head. It was distinctly upsetting and she didn’t understand a word of it. In that brief moment, her mind was mostly occupied with the fact that she did (vaguely) recognize the language. If she was calmer, she would be able to say why (It was, in fact, because the soldiers had been asking around if anyone knew Czech. She didn’t. It only stuck out because of how they had said it. That their boss “wouldn’t let the kid forget.” She had been too scared to speak up and ask what they meant by that.) but she was most certainly not calm. In fact, she was, to put it very mildly, freaked the hell out.

The scene she opened her eyes to wasn’t great. The boy on the bed had been shocked well awake by something. Based on how the straps of the mask still floated around the boy’s head, she could guess what had woken him up. Not why, of course, she was not an idiot whisperer. She couldn’t even begin to guess which of them had gone and done it. The pool of suspects was too large. But, it was easy enough to figure out. The lines that had been connected to the boy now snaked themselves around him. His knees were tight to his chest. The intruding thoughts cut off quickly, but the boy didn’t disappear. He stared at her. Even with the mask’s orange lenses hiding his eyes, she knew he was staring. Maybe he was still in her mind? She tried to be calm even as she imagined him shifting through her thoughts and memories. It wasn’t working very well.

So instead, she just returned the stare. The boy flickered several times before disappearing fully for nearly a second, and then stopping altogether. The air around him had a slight fuzziness about it, like a room someone had recently smoked in or a hazy sort of memory, but even that faded quickly. He let out one tired, defeated wheeze for the attempt. She let out a small sigh of relief. He was still too weak and tired to do much. The sedatives they had been using were relatively light, but she was still a little surprised the kid hadn’t fallen back asleep yet. But as she watched, she noticed how the mask hung heavy. The straps clumsily coiling together in a blind attempt to relatch themselves. Her calm became slightly more real. Hopefully the excitement would fade or someone would get help before she was splattered against the wall.

The mask tilted awkwardly. It was quickly proving to be too much weight for his neck. The Czech thoughts came back much slower. Tired, but also clearly cautious and scared. Scared of her? She didn’t understand it, his fear or his words, but she could feel the words were a question. So she just started giving answers. “This is Mother Base.” She said, gesturing to the floor and praying he took it to mean the whole building. “I’m,” she gestured to herself, "Silent Crocodile." She stopped for a second, unsure why she used her code name in place of her real one. The vague idea that “names have power” bubbled up somewhere in her mind. But he didn’t seem puzzled by the name. Honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised if he thought that was a real name. It was just more sounds in another language he likely didn’t understand. Same as some of the soldiers calling him “Tretij” thinking it was a name, she mused.

The kid prickled at the name. The fact that the psychic was still listening was damn freaky, but she still let out a quick “Sorry” anyway. Names have power. The boy had straightened his head. It seemed like he hadn’t expected an apology. The word “Promiňte” floated through her mind, nestled between her wonderings about his response. Promiňte. Even if she didn’t understand the boy’s language, she recognized the inflection of an apology. She wasn’t sure if he meant to clarify if it was a sorry or to apologize for something himself, but she gave him a short nod either way.

She sat, watching nervously. They both studied their environment in the strange silence. She supposed it wasn’t particularly silent to a psychic (she doubted it ever really was), but it felt like an empty space to her. Usually, she would try to fill it. But filling spaces had quickly proven to be a very bad thing today. So, if quiet was the only thing that protected her from the groggy little augur, she would let it sit bare. Instead, she elected to be very small, remain quiet, and start praying. She tried to dredge up some hope. She hadn’t been instantly killed, so that meant her chances of survival were probably only growing. Right?

She turned back to the kid. It hadn’t killed her yet. That was probably a bad method for a doctor to follow, but she had also managed to survive this far. So why not tease death? He didn’t look at her, opting instead to stare down the bed beneath him. She wasn’t sure if he was asleep, thinking, or doing some psychic thing. But, she was also pretty sure she didn’t want to know, so she didn’t even think to question it. Finally, after a near eternity, he moved one thin hand out, the lines that had been connected to him floating up towards her. Then, he posed a question. Ok. Names where just sounds but this would be more complex to explain. She pointed to each and then tried to picture water, then a meal, and finally sleep. She had never been particularly good at imagining things, so the idea of sleep was a difficult one to pass across. The kid shuddered, pushing the lines away, but nodded.

She decided to do something bold. She might survive by just sitting quietly, but she would never be able to keep it up. She straightened herself out. “Alright then!” The boy cringed at the outburst, and she moved to correct herself, “Do you want something real to eat then? You're probably pretty hungry, yeah?” He gave no response either way. So, she tried her best to not spook the kid as she got up and clicked over to the cabinets.

It was only when she was halfway to the cabinets she realized it would probably have been better to use this as an excuse to run, but it was too late for that now. This was probably better anyway, since the kid would probably know if she used this as an excuse to escape. She paused.

Curled between the wall and cabinets she found Crying Harrier, living up to his name. So, he was the one who tried to remove the mask. He hadn’t even bothered to try and save her, instead abandoning her to the violent little psychic’s whims. Great. As she stood above him, she was half tempted to jab the point of her shoe into him. He, at the very least, deserved that. He probably still thought she was infected and this was him trying to get her killed. Well probably not on purpose, she thought, correcting herself. That was a bit too paranoid. But, she did deserve to be paranoid about him for a bit. That was the least she could give herself.

Crocodile shuffled through for the crackers. They lacked any salt, which was a death sentence for the ediblity in her mind, but they would do. She was sure Harrier hadn’t noticed her yet, because he would be rambling about something if he had. Probably not an apology, she thought bitterly as she grasped the small bag of crackers. She would let him sit and worry for a bit. It was the least she could do.

She brought the crackers back, paused after a bit of thought, and then tried to open them. The bag instead chose to explode, and then paused in it’s self shattering. She blinked at the floating crackers, which gathered like playing cards sorted by invisible hands. Then they stopped. She stared at the crackers, struck mute by their disregard for gravity. This was certainly not the most impressive thing the boy could do, but it was simply not something that should have been possible. When the moment had lasted long enough that it felt thoroughly awkward she clapped onto the crackers, finally placed them down next to the kid, and sat herself back down.

The kid settled, knees clamping his mask close to his head as the crackers disappeared into the small opening he had created. She felt like mimicking him and curling up herself honestly, her conscience already guilty over Crying Harrier. Because of course she was guilty about it. She couldn’t just let that man feel bad for a bit. Great. She considered her options. On one hand, talking to him meant figuring out what they were going to do with the kid. But on the other hand, not talking to him risked him telling the others she was dead. Again. Neither were particularly appealing. 

For now though, she decided she would just sit while the creepy kid ate his crackers and try to work out what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, we return to the minor characters! Feels good to be honest.


	4. Chapter 4

Kaz, was, as usual, not having a very good day. The day was ranging between miserable and boring, and at this point he wasn’t sure which he liked less. This was not being made better by anything. He was quite sure that this very day had to have been designed by some greater power (or possibly Ocelot) to make him miserable. Everyone had been avoiding him because of this, which had left him angry at them and made them avoid him even more, which left him even angrier.

So as he crutched his way through this horrible, terrible day, he wasn’t particularly careful about the wet floor (because of course it was wet and miserable out. How else would it be). He didn’t even manage to trip and get nice, sharp pain. He just managed to spill, just, all of his papers and get himself thoroughly unbalanced. He rubbed his eyes as he got himself stabled and then stared straight ahead at what was certainly not there. His papers, neatly collecting themselves. Whatever was holding them was invisible, up until it noticed he saw it and slipped through the walls into medbay. With his papers. Because of course it did.

He had just smashed his way into medbay (because what the hell) when the female doctor BB had just picked up came up looking like she was pretty sure she had been caught but very much didn’t want to give away anything he didn’t yet know. His brain was currently too filled with questions to come up with some colorful thing to compare the look on her face to. He would workshop some options for later. He had plenty of colorful ways to express his absolute befuddlement and growing terror, but chose a succinct “What the fuck?” to save time. The woman was just considering her options when a man unfurled himself from behind the cabinets, and promptly started sobbing about how Silent Crocodile was probably already dead. It took the man, now registering to Kaz as Crying Harrier, a solid few seconds to realize that the tear blurred figure next to him was Silent Crocodile herself.

The look on Harrier’s face was almost comedic.

Silent Crocodile finally spoke up. “Crying Harrier tried to take off the kid- ‘the Third Child’’s mask and woke him up.” Harrier looked like he was about to object but instead let out a noise that could charitably be described as a Yelp. He backed away a bit too quickly, and managed to fall flat on his ass trying to escape. Miller turned to find the aforementioned Third Child floating with papers- his papers tucked against their chest. More colorful words floated through Kaz’s mind. But, though he was known to use several languages to paint with even more shades of cursing, the other language in his head still stood out. It wasn’t just not a language that he spoke, but also painted with, of all things, guilt. The kid was already in his head. Wonderful.

Silent Crocodile, for her part, seemed to become more calm at the kid’s appearance. “Can you please give his papers back?” She asked, pointing to the papers and then to him. After a small delay as the boy looked between the two of them, he relinquished the papers. He allowed them to sit in front of himself, then drifted backwards from them. Kaz collected the papers from their place suspended in the air, trying his best to keep his eyes on the kid and also not look anywhere near him. He tried to be pragmatic. “He understands English?”

“No, but he seems to be pretty good at interpreting… ah, what he’s hearing.” She tapped just a bit above her ears, seemingly unable to bring herself to say “thoughts.” He didn’t really want to either. He wasn’t made for dealing with such intangible things. He was made for dealing with very tangible and frequently dangerous things. The kid was dangerous in a way, so he rubbed the bridge of his nose to give himself something physical. All of this was a very, very headache inducing thing. But it did, in some small and emotional way, make sense. The whole problem they had with the kid was that he fed on others emotions and, in exchange, enacted their wills through psychic means. So understanding wills and emotions would be second nature to that. Humans were not meant for this sort of thing, a small part of him reasoned. Another part of him was spurred on by the memory that psychic powers were apparently parasitic. 

“If he’s awake, how come he isn’t parasiting anyone?” The silence was heavy. The kid bobbed in the corner of his vision, small and unobtrusive. Both doctors seemed to be trying to match. Silent Crocodile finally broke the silence. “How do we know he isn’t?"

“And who would you suggest he’s feeding off of? You?” She punctuated her logic with an impressively awkward laugh. Having to go on these sort of loose theories made doctors get squirmy under most circumstances, and this was a damn near paranormal situation. “I think he’s just spread thin. With Big Boss out, there aren’t exactly any stand-out personalities.” As the silence continued to persist, she realized the implication of her words, and tried to backtrack.

"Or maybe since he’s eating solid foods, but we don’t know if the parasitizing was to make up for lack of nutrition or… mental nutrition?” She laughed again, struggling to find all the words in English, let alone ones that didn’t sound completely ridiculous. “To be honest, for all we know he’s just parasitizing someone on base and is just currently lacking any goal to accomplish for them.”

The idea that someone on base was unwittingly holding the trigger on a psychic bomb sitting in their mits was not comforting. Silent Crocodile didn’t seem to think it was either, as she started shifting from foot to foot as soon as she stopped talking. Crying Harrier let out a small, pitiful cry about something or other. Miller found the kid floating far closer to him, staring up at him. The kid tried to say something again, but gave up quickly. He bobbed a little, and disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My least favorite chapter and the last that I wrote months ago in one big chunk with the rest of this. If the writing suddenly sounds different next chapter then goes back to normal around chapter 7 that’s probably why. Despite this being my least favorite chapter, it’s the only that has art! By which I mean it has art for a very different fic that existed in my head when I first started thinking about this.  
> 


End file.
